William Brandt (Emeritus Professor of Music, Washington State University) donated his papers to Washington State University Libraries in 1987 (MS87-35) and 1990 (MS90-69). He initially processed and organized the collection in 1993-1994. Stephen D. Youngkin reprocessed the papers in February of 2001 under the supervision of Manuscripts Librarian Robert N. Matuozzi, who also edited the finding aid.

Number of containers: 31
Linear feet of shelf space: 16

BIOGRAPHY

William Edward Brandt was born in Butte, Montana, in 1920. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Spokane, Washington. He began endeavoring to compose music as early as fourteen, teaching himself enough to write rudimentary compositions during the period between high school and his second year of college (1934-1939). Brandt began attending the State College of Washington in 1939, majoring in chemistry, but composing music for the classes in Modern Dance taught by Norma Anderson. Brandt began almost four years of military service in the U.S. Army in 1942. Travel associated with his army enlistment allowed him to attend recitals and concerts around the country, including stops in Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, where he attended concerts and recitals. He worked for three years as a librarian of classified materials at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, a position that gave Brandt time on weekends to continue his work with composition, with a strong emphasis on counterpoint and form. In Utah, he also met the late well-known illustrator Edward Gorey, with whom he maintained a friendship.

In 1945, Brandt met and married Jane Quire (also from Spokane), who for a brief time had attended the famous Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York. Their son, Roger Frederick, was born in May of 1946. Jane Quire encouraged Brandt to apply to Eastman on a so-called "challenge" basis, which he did successfully with a composition titled "Night." After he was discharged from the Army in 1946, Jane encouraged him to apply for serious study in music at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, New York, which she had attended briefly. He applied to their Graduate School on a "challenge" basis, submitting a work for large orchestra, chorus and vocal soloists based on Robinson Jeffers' poem "Night" as evidence of his abilities. He was admitted and studied orchestration and composition with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson from 1946-1950. His successes at Eastman began with a reading of the "Poe Ballet" at the 1947 Symposium, and with other readings at subsequent Eastman Symposia.

During the Eastman years, Brandt's compositional style (as he writes in unpublished biographical notes quoted throughout this synoptic sketch) became more "reasoned and modal" and less rooted in "romantic chromaticism" and "tonality." Though contrapuntal, the writing was less dissonant, featuring compositions more "unified in harmonic and melodic" schemes. The orchestral "King Lear Suite" and the "Third String Quartet," examples of Brandt's Eastman style, were chosen by Howard Hanson to be performed at the American Composers Festival Concerts in Rochester and in Toronto, respectively. Brandt obtained his Master of Music degree in 1948 and his Ph.D. in 1950.

From 1950 to 1956, Brandt sought permanent employment in his field. He and Jane Quire divorced. He taught music in Seattle for a time, giving piano classes under the auspices of the Hopper-Kelly Music Company. During the course of his work, he met soprano Janet Steinke. They were married in 1953 and had two sons, David Evans Brandt (b. 1955) and Douglas Edward Brandt (b. 1960).

Brandt was a member of the musical faculty of Washington State University from 1956 to 1985, when he retired as full professor. From 1958 to 1983, he was also the choirmaster at St. James Episcopal Church in Pullman, Washington. During this period Brandt's secular compositional style became increasingly "chromatic, building on the previous contrapuntal style" and evolved into the twelve-tone serial technique. The variety of choral music he composed for the church, by contrast, was written in a tonally nonfunctional triadic style "in order to effect some sort of compromise between desirable ‘modernity’ and the limitations of the choir, the tastes of the congregation, and the composer's own somewhat conservative ideas about church music. . . ." Brandt published The Way of Music in 1963, and issued a revised edition in 1968. He worked with music faculty at Indiana University to produce a unified course in music theory and history. Brandt was responsible for anthologies covering the Baroque, Classic and Romantic periods. Other authors produced the Medieval and Modern period anthologies as well as accompanying theory and sight-singing texts. Due to a change in the ownership of the publisher, only the anthologies were published. In the 1980s, Brandt wrote another unpublished text for use in his Washington State University Honors courses which dealt with how various arts in the twentieth century reflected their historical contexts. Since retiring in 1985, his musical compositions have been composed in a "looser, not always dodecaphonic style, even plainly tonal when the purpose and the materials seem to require it." Brandt's "Toccata for Piano" was played in South America on a tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

ARRANGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

The William Brandt Papers consist chiefly of music manuscripts. Some of these compositions are fragments. The organizational arrangement has been imposed by the archivist, and consists of two series: Series 1, Music Manuscripts 1934 -1993, includes Subseries 1.1, Non-Oversize Manuscripts, and Subseries 1.2, Oversize Manuscripts, both arranged in alphabetical order by composition title. (In cases where a composition has been produced and/or reproduced in both size formats, those folders of material have all been placed with oversize manuscripts.) Series 2, Correspondence and Reference Material 1946-1995, includes Subseries 2.1 Correspondence, and Subseries 2.2, Reference Material. The correspondence is arranged chronologically by date but has been left in its original internal order. Series 3, Writings and Ephemera 1872-1993, includes programs, publicity, reviews, lectures, talks, published articles, introductions, miscellaneous materials and diplomas and certificates. Series 4, Photographs and Drawings 1942-1993, includes both black and white and color performance stills and personal photographs. Series 5, Phonograph Records, circa 1940s, contains six 78 RPM demonstration recordings.

The descriptive information in Series 1 is standardized according to the classification of musical compositions employed by Arthur Cohn in Recorded Classical Music: A Critical Guide to Compositions and Performances (Schirmer Books, 1981), xi-xii. An index following the descriptive inventory lists Brandts music compositions in opus number order with corresponding folder number.

Letters received from Cal (Englbart) Rogers; "A Comparison of Two Novels," Months Best, The Creative Writing magazine of the University of Washington, March 1950; poem.

211-212

1950-1995, undated

Letters received, miscellaneous

213-214

1951-1992

Letters received concerning publications, performances, positions, commissions, etc.; advertisement for The Way of Music, report of sales for The Way of Music (1966), Report on sabbatical leave, first semester, 1976-1977, Comments on Proposed Revision of The Way of Music, program notes & text for St. James performance of Cantata Mistica, flyer, newspaper clipping (1982).

215

1956-1992, undated

Letters received, fan mail

216-217

1962-1965

Letters received in connection with The Way of Music; readers reviews.

Previous compilations of notes on this collection: biographical periods of works in this catalogue, an alphabetical index, chronological catalog, large box catalog, chronological works list including both numbered and unnumbered compositions, container lists, index of compositions by opus number, index of compositions by performance, and index of compositions by performance medium. Also, photocopies from Arthur Cohn, Recorded Classical Music: A Critical Guide to Compositions and Performances (1981), xi-xii.

Miscellaneous materials; Music to be Performed at the Worlds Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival, in Boston, 1872, Metropolitan Opera House, Grand Opera Season 1910-1911 (program), Veterans Administration notice of expiration of entitlement (1950), schedule of events (1968), entry form for The International Whos Who, announcement, class evaluation (1983), In Memoriam: Peter DeLone (1984), The Nutcrackers (program) 1989-1990, Washington State Composers (brochure), instructions for assembling my first telescope, song, Auditorium Theatre (program), Patriotic Lectures; diplomas, certificates, State College of Washington, Phi Kappa Phi, Washington State University Certificate of Service, letter of recognition from Samuel H. Smith, President, WSU, to Dr. William E. Brandt, upon his retirement.

236-241

1949-1985, undated

Lectures, talks, skits, published articles, introductions; Music Literature Outline: The Development of Concerto Form from J.S. Bach to Mozart; Beethoven: The Spiritual Bridge; Music Now: A Dying Fall; Three American Composers; Musorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Music for Czar and Commissar - Elderhostel Course; A Prologue Illustrated Address; Twin Trends in 20th Century Painting and Music; The Arts in Turmoil Conference; Music in Germany under the Weimar Republic, 1920-1933; Introduction to Nadas recital as "The Invited Address"; April Fools Day - Introduction; Otto Stumpf-Fassbender is the Name & Musicology is my Game!; Introduction for Nicolas Slonimsky; A Collage of Modern Music; Ussachevksy; Music to be Performed at the Worlds Peace Jubilee and Music Festival in Boston, June, 1872; Beethovens Russian Enigma; Some Speculation about Beethovens Use of Integrative Devices in Large Compositions; Criticisms of the Beethoven Symphonies from Thayer-Forbers; Third Relationships; Metternick; Researchers of Note; Honors Address Examples (cassette tape), Common Courtesy III (cassette tape)

31

242-245

A Short History of Russia & Its Music for Elderhostel; Music in Soviet Russia; Music for Csar and Commissar - Notes; Stop and Go: Soviet Art Music Since Stalin; The Soviet Gig: Pop Music in the USSR; Russky Jazzsky

Black & white and color stills of WSU classes, campus performances, the "Quarter Century Club," on set of Neutral Ground, military photos, including Dugway Proving Ground and Camp Sibert, Alabama, and publication photos. Also sketch.

Series 5: Phonograph Records, ca. 1940s

252

ca. 1940s.

Six 78 RPM production disks. Trio String Quartet #2; Two Pieces for Bassoon and Piano

William Brandt Papers

Cage 584

Index of Compositions in Opus Number Order

Note: William Brandt did not always assign unique opus numbers to specific compositions, nor did he assign all compositions an opus number. Thus, to the group of compositions titled "Miscellaneous Piano Pieces" from the period 1934-1938, Brandt assigned opus numbers 1-7, though these are not listed here. Brandt also assigned individual opus numbers 1 through 7 to a later group of (seven) different compositions, which are listed in this index. "Miscellaneous Piano Pieces" may be found in Folder 89.